Vail Daily columnist Richard Carnes: Farrah in a foxhole?

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Biologically speaking, women exist to have children while it's the men's job to be psychopaths beating each other over the head with sticks to prove who has the bigger stick.

It's what we do.

But when looked upon from a pure equality-of-the-sexes point of view, I suppose there is no logical reason why women should be prevented from enjoying the same plethora of benefits men so happily relish from combat duty, especially in such titillating locales as Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now that I think about it, there are a number of females in my personal past that I believe would actually enjoy watching the male next to them explode in a colorful blast of chunky bits.

But like most struggling relationships, timing is everything.

Yet in the real world of the military, the mere thought of any woman being subjected to the true horrors of combat is enough to convince me, and any rational human being, that women simply deserve more respect than what we Brutus types show one another.

I hold women high above the barbaric act of killing another human being just to prove a point or to momentarily be king of the mountain over a particular parcel of land.

Men are the ones who are innately aggressive.

All one has to do is take a look at the current gun control issue, in which testosterone-woven blankets of insecurity are being worn by the thousands in a "I double-dog dare you to just try and come and take my guns away!" mantra.

Sure, chest beating of this sort is a valuable trait in soldiers, but one that I have rarely seen in women, nor do I care to.

But I suppose it really shouldn't matter if they're called Betty or Butch, as long as they are battle ready, and that's where the details become somewhat sketchy.

Would they be better soldiers during that certain time of the month, or would the cramps cloud their judgment?

Would a six-month tour of duty come with an ample supply of "Plan B" (the morning after pill), or how long would they receive paid leave for pregnancy?

Would other soldiers be subjected to Celine Dion instead of AC/DC as warm up tunes before a hostile mission?

All sexist remarks aside, face it, G.I. Jane was fiction, and no one, absolutely no one at all, wants to deal with the political ramifications of women coming home in body-bags or the mind-numbing terror of even simply imagining a female POW.

Yes, hardcore feminists insist women deserve the right to fight in combat, yet the "right" is not an issue to me. When the first female soldier comes home raped by the enemy or her dead body is paraded around some sand-choked Middle East dive, certain politicians will begin screaming that women should never have been allowed in combat in the first place and lay the blame squarely upon whoever happens to be sitting in the White House.

And even if I am wrong, I still simply cannot understand why or how any civilized nation, in this day and age, could even think of sending their women to fight in combat, especially when they're the ones we're trying to impress with all this violent nonsense in the first place.

Richard Carnes of Edwards writes weekly. He can be reached at poor@vail.net.